CHOCORUA. 215 



The swifts had not begun building in the 

 chimney, but the cause of their delay was discov- 

 ered when one of them was found beating against 

 the inside of an upstairs chamber window. The 

 poor frightened creature had come down the 

 chimney into the fireplace, and had probably been 

 a captive for several days. Holding it gently but 

 firmly in my left hand, I endeavored to hypno- 

 tize it, as I had the peabody bird on April 80th. 

 Its brown eyes looked at me beseechingly, and 

 it winced whenever I touched it. Its flat head, 

 tiny beak leading to a wide mouth, long slender 

 wings, insignificant feet and legs, and strange 

 little tail, with bare spikes at the tips of the 

 feathers, combined to form a creature more like 

 a living arrow than a denizen of earth. Tak- 

 ing it out-of-doors I caressed it a moment more 

 and then slowly opened my fingers. Could it 

 be that the tiny being, which I might have 

 crushed by one grip of my hand, possessed a 

 speed almost equal to a projectile, and a brain 

 powerful enough to will that speed and to direct 

 it ? Like a breath the bird was gone. Those 

 slender wings throbbing through the air bore it 

 higher and higher, round and round in widen- 

 ing circles, until it was lost in the depths of the 

 sky. I felt as though I had held a soul in my 

 hand and as though that soul had gone back to 

 the infinite. 



